Jag XFR: a history lesson

I was driving the new Jaguar XFR this weekend.</p> <a href="http://www.autocar.co.uk/csfiles/blogs/anythinggoes/MONTEBLANCO140220092_1433E5D4.jpg"><img title="MONTEBLANCO 14-02-2009 (2)" style="border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; border-right-width: 0px" height="163" alt="MONTEBLANCO 14-02-2009 (2)" src="http://www.autocar.co.uk/csfiles/blogs/anythinggoes/MONTEBLANCO140220092_thumb_376671E8.jpg" width="244" align="left" border="0" /></a>Which would easily have been the best thing I did had it not been for the fact that I also got a very quick go in a Jaguar D-type.

Which would easily have been the best thing I did had it not been for the fact that I also got a very quick go in a Jaguar D-type.

I’m not going to deceive you or embarrass myself by drawing too many links between the two but there were some. It, like the XFR, also has a wonderfully two-sided personality. They’re both docile and laughably easy to drive when you fancy a more laid back approach.

But, just like Jag’s new super-saloon, when you up the ante the car’s personality changes completely, going from sleepy to snarly within a split second.

But driving the XFR with its ultra-modern design, brand new (and brilliant) supercharged V8 and multitude of new electronic chassis systems, also reminds me how good it is to have a modern Jaguar back instead of a company giving us pastiches of what went before.

The D-type was a technological masterpiece in its day and while that may be a little strong for the XFR – it isn’t far behind.